ACDSee Pro

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(16 posts)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Hi,

    First off, I must explain that I do not use the ACDSee database, at all. I only use IPTC to store all the information about a picture directly into the picture's file header. The fields I use are:

    1. Caption
    2. Keywords
    3. Photographer
    4. Object name
    5. Date/time created
    6. City
    7. Country name

    To browse my picture collection, I could therefore only use the search function. So I was looking forward to the new auto categories function in ACDSee Pro 2 as it would let me browse my collection as it would be possible with any metadata stored in ACDSee's database, i.e. browsing with the help of a tree menu.

    So I installed ACDSee Pro 2 final, made a new database, excluded everything except my pictures folder and ran "Catalog files...".

    -> The first thing I noticed afterwards was, that my input from the beta period did not found its way into the final version. In ACDSee Pro 2 final we still have a messy list of "Photo Properties" in which some IPTC fields are commented by "(IPTC)", some not (e.g. "Photographer" which is an IPTC field). In the beta period I suggested a minimim of two subcategories in "Photo Properties", on called "IPTC" and the other "EXIF", under which you can find fields of the selected metadata type, only.

    Question 1: So is there a chance that we get any order into this messy selection?

    -> The second thing or issue was, that I had unknown metadata in my auto categories, so where do this come from? Even if I select the unknown metadata entry, no file is shown in the result list. Sure, maybe there is a way to remove the unneeded keywords (is there?) but why did ACDSee place them in my list, at all?

    Question 2: Is there a way to remove unknown and unneeded IPTC metadata from the auto categories list automatically (so that ACDSee tries to determine if a keyword is actually used and if not removes it from the list automatically)?
    Question 3: Were do these unknown entries come from?

    You have to understand, that tagging the IPTC fields of thousands of pictures is a very time consuming procedure. Having ACDSee messing around like this makes me kinda nervous. I do make backups regularly but this does not help if I cannot reproduce what ACDSee does and when it does this.

    Best wishes,

    Tankred

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 06:51 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sam Dring
    Moderator

    Tankred
    I also only use iptc and loaded Pro2 final with a fresh dbase.
    The first thing I noticed afterwards was, that my input from the beta period did not found its way into the final version Is this input showing in any other application or are you saying that the beta did not work properly?
    The second thing or issue was, that I had unknown metadata in my auto categories, so where do this come from? There are unknowns, unspecifieds and Not Defineds within auto-cats but for me they are all bringing up images so have some real use.
    Question 2: Is there a way to remove unknown and unneeded IPTC metadata from the auto categories list automatically (so that ACDSee tries to determine if a keyword is actually used and if not removes it from the list automatically)?
    Question 3: Were do these unknown entries come from? I don't think there is a way of cleaning this up but in some respects I think I would prefer that all auto-cats are populated with the quantity against each item which would then make the unknowns, unspecifieds and Not Defineds really useful as a quick check against metadata completedness.

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 08:20 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    samdring said:

    I don't think there is a way of cleaning this up but in some respects I think I would prefer that all auto-cats are populated with the quantity against each item which would then make the unknowns, unspecifieds and Not Defineds really useful as a quick check against metadata completedness.

    Now that's a good idea! Additionally, one could determine keywords that are unnecessary.

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 09:33 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sam Dring
    Moderator

    Tankred
    Apologies I read your first post wrongly
    The second thing or issue was, that I had unknown metadata in my auto categories, so where do this come from? Even if I select the unknown metadata entry, no file is shown in the result list. Sure, maybe there is a way to remove the unneeded keywords (is there?) but why did ACDSee place them in my list, at all?
    When you said unknown in that quote I thought you meant they were entitled unknown which appears as an entry in many of the auto-cats along with unspecified etc
    However, I just do not understand how you can have such keywords. A dbf viewer would help to look at the catalogue itself but that is a bit OTT

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 12:02 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Tankred said:

    Not in my case. I have very specific keywords in my list I've never heard of. And they are not bringing up any pictures although I started with an empty database, too.

    Is it possible you have, at some point, cataloged (either explicitly or by simply browsing to folder that is not excluded) an image that has this keyword, and that image is no longer present or was later explicitly excluded? I'm going on the assumption that ACDSee isn't making up that keyword and really does have reason to think you might at one point have had an image in your collection with that keyword.

    But if I'm understanding the issue correctly, I suppose it doesn't matter how it got there so much as whether you can get rid of it. I haven't really followed all the discussions regarding the auto-category lists because I seldom use the feature myself, but I gather that people are wishing that keywords no longer being used would be automatically removed from the list. Given that this is not the case, it must be that the list is stored somewhere. Does removing the database and recataloging everything not reset the list (seems this may have been claimed elsewhere)? That might suggest the list is stored in the registry. I wonder what would happen if you cleared out the list in the registry - perhaps that would force it to be regenerated?

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 02:48 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • carabs
    Member

    Marc, I don't know anything about where they might be stored. But I have a test to find out if it is stored in the DB or Reg..

    -Back up the WHOLE database.
    -Close Pro2.
    -Remove the default database folder for that user.
    -Restart Pro2, and a new fresh DB would be installed. If the Auto Cats are there/not there, you have your answer on where they are stored.
    -If they are NOT there, Restore from your backup. If they are now there, than they are most definitely part of your DB.

    I might try this when I get home just for S&G.

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 03:00 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Marc Sabatella said:

    Does removing the database and recataloging everything not reset the list

    Yes, removing the database does clean out the list. But it's not very convenient to regularly re-catalogue my whole collection.

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 03:19 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Tankred said:

    Is it possible that ACDSee "sucks in" IPTC data from pictures that are on excluded media?

    I can answer my own question: yes, after several tests I can confirm, that ACDSee is actually adding metadata into the program, even if the pictures are located on an excluded media. Is this a product issue or is this an intended behaviour?

    Posted On September 21, 2007 - 05:29 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Tankred said:

    I can answer my own question: yes, after several tests I can confirm, that ACDSee is actually adding metadata into the program, even if the pictures are located on an excluded media. Is this a product issue or is this an intended behaviour?

    I don't know, but this behavior was the subject of some debate on the Pro 1 and or Pro 2 beta forums a while back. I eventually discovered that clicking the progress indicator at the bottom of the screen would stop the cataloging, so at least people who noticed their system slowing during the cataloging had a way to stop this. But it's still a drag to have to do every time you visit such a folder if your workflow is such that visiting excluded folders is something you do often. You can of course turn off the recording of IPTC metadata during cataloging (Tools->Options->Database), but then, that would turn it off for *all* folders, not just excluded ones - and given it still performs the cataloging operation for excluded folders, it's entirely possible you'd still end up with unwanted IPTC keywords in your Auto Categories.

    Assuming you have a main picture folder that is *not* excluded for the db, and that you are allowing ACDSee to catalog those folders so that it can perform IPTC search faster than it would if it had to actually look at the files, you might consider turning off that option to harvest IPTC info (assuming it does in fact have the desired effect of suppressing the addition of unwanted keywords from excluded folders), and instead run batch set infomation to explicitly copy the IPTC keywords into the database. Actually, it's conceivable you wouldn't even have to do that - merely running the operation might be enough to get it to catalog the IPTC keywords for future searches. Some amount of experimenting would probably be in order. But I *do* suspect it would be possible to amend your workflow such that you can achieve what you want.

    Posted On September 22, 2007 - 06:09 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sam Dring
    Moderator

    Tankred
    Slightly easier than loading fresh dbase:
    1. Database>database maintenance
    2. Your excluded folders do not show that they have info in them but, nevertheless, select them and choose remove all dbase info
    3. Remove keywords from keyword picker
    4. F5 refresh appears not to clear the now defunct keyword values but a re-start does.

    Posted On September 23, 2007 - 07:23 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Thank you for your answers!

    These procedures are much too complicated. I use ACDSee very often to adjust pictures my colleagues send me to publish them on our webspace. This is a quick and dirty method I don't want to miss. And on the other hand, I like my DAM workflow to stay intact with ACDSee collecting my collection's metadata automatically.

    The best way would be ACDSee not collecting any data of pictures on excluded metadata, at all. I cannot understand why ACDSee does this, anyway.

    But for now, I decided not to use the auto categories feature anymore, because like this it's of no use for me. It's a shame, because in my opinion auto categories were the main new feature in Pro 2 (besides a working batch processing that stops messing up my temp drive).

    Posted On September 23, 2007 - 07:41 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Sam Dring
    Moderator

    Tankred
    Had assumed it was a one-off issue hence my reply. Suppose you could use a batch file (posted recently again) and have 2 versions of your dbase - one clean and another for your colleagues. Best I can think of - sorry

    Posted On September 23, 2007 - 10:34 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Thank you. I already thought about hosting my whole collection, ACDSee and a second copy of Windows in a virtual machine. But that's all far below perfect.

    Posted On September 23, 2007 - 11:13 AM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Marc Sabatella
    Moderator

    Tankred said:

    These procedures are much too complicated. I use ACDSee very often to adjust pictures my colleagues send me to publish them on our webspace. This is a quick and dirty method I don't want to miss. And on the other hand, I like my DAM workflow to stay intact with ACDSee collecting my collection's metadata automatically.

    I'm still not sure I understand the actual problem - is it that this work you do adjusting your colleagues' pictures clutters your Auto Categories list for your own work? If that's the case, and replacing the db does clear the auto category list, then I'd suggest using a batch file to switch databases. That is, have two separate databases, and two batch files to start ACDSee - one that moves your own db into position before starting ACDSee, and another that moves the db for your colleagues' files into position before starting ACDSee. Not ideal, perhaps, but far better than rebuilding your entire db (I too was assuming this was a one-time cleanup you were trying to achieve). Another possibility would be to create a separate user account on the same machine specifically for doing work on your colleague's pictures - this would automatically give you separate db's.

    But for now, I decided not to use the auto categories feature anymore, because like this it's of no use for me.

    Just to be clear - even after unchecking the option to collect IPTC data from cataloged files, it still does so? That would seem to me a bug, I think. But if unchecking that option *does* suppress the collection of IPTC data, then instead of switching db's every time you switch from your own work to your colleague's, you could simply switch the state of this option.

    It's a shame, because in my opinion auto categories were the main new feature in Pro 2 (besides a working batch processing that stops messing up my temp drive).

    Just to clarify for the sake of anyone else reading this - while auto categories may be the main new feature you personally are using, the main new features from the perspective of where most of the work went are almost certainly the RAW processing improvements, which are pretty huge, especially with regards to workflow.

    Posted On September 24, 2007 - 04:46 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Tankred
    Moderator

    Marc Sabatella said:

    Just to clarify for the sake of anyone else reading this - while auto categories may be the main new feature you personally are using, the main new features ... are ... the RAW processing improvements ...

    That's the reason why I wrote 'in my opinion', because I generously grant everyone to have one of his or her own. </forums.acdsystems.com/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />

    Posted On September 24, 2007 - 05:28 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

  • Ryan Bulmer
    ACDSee Developer

    I believe the keyword issue you're seeing has to do with how keywords works. Since the data isn't just associated with the file, but also shows up in the keyword picker dialog etc. it is probably ending up in the database through one of these other systems. There's probably a similar reason you're having issues with some of the other fields ending up in the database as well.

    I've logged this bug. None of the data about files in excluded folders should be ending up in the database. I can't promise if a fix for this will show up in an update or not though.

    Posted On September 25, 2007 - 01:39 PM (2 years ago) (Permalink to this post)

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